The coded message led Jaxson through Victoria Island's hidden veins, until he stood before a door so unassuming it should have been invisible. Yet it hummed—expensive, alive, like it knew who he was. This was no alleyway entrance. This was Enigma's.
The elevator that swallowed him was sleek and soundless, filled with a faint charge of ozone, the exact scent that haunted his dreams. His Alpha instincts were on edge, a strange mixture of hunger and dread coiling in his chest as the doors opened—
—into Enigma's world.
Glass stretched to the skyline, Lagos spread out beneath a black sky glittering with stars and city lights. The penthouse was all sharp lines, dark wood, and quiet power. But none of it mattered.
Because Enigma was there.
He stood by the window, a shadow framed by firefly lights, his robe flowing like liquid darkness. He didn't turn immediately. He didn't need to. Jaxson felt him like a hand wrapped tight around his throat.
When he finally looked back, slow and deliberate, Jaxson's chest clenched. That face, that voice—
"Welcome, Alpha," Enigma murmured, like silk sliding over steel. "Was your chase worth the sweat?"
Jaxson's jaw tightened. His entire body screamed to claim, but his words came out clipped. "You keep… interesting company."
Enigma smiled. A slow, dangerous curl of his lips. "Privacy is the only true currency, don't you think?"
He moved closer, unhurried, his robe whispering across the polished floor. The air thickened. Jaxson could barely breathe.
"You promised me something," Jaxson growled, his control fraying with every step the enigma took.
"And I always deliver," Enigma said, stopping a single breath away. His fingers brushed Jaxson's chest, so lightly it burned. "Tell me, Alpha. What is it you truly crave?"
The words tore from him before he could stop them. "You. I crave you."
Enigma's smile deepened, his twilight eyes glinting with something sharp. "And if I let you have me, Jaxson—would you even survive it?"
Jaxson's breath hitched. His hands twitched, ready to seize, to mark, to own. But something in Enigma's gaze—an impossible, ancient knowing—held him frozen.
"Perhaps," Enigma whispered, leaning closer, his lips ghosting Jaxson's ear. "Perhaps you should learn what I really am… before you think about claiming me."
And just like that, the atmosphere shifted. His touch grew heavier, a current pulsing beneath Jaxson's skin. Not Omega-soft. Not Alpha-firm. Something more.
"I am not your Omega," Enigma breathed. "I am more. Above it. Beyond it."
The room vibrated with an energy Jaxson had never felt before, pulling at every instinct, unraveling his certainty. For the first time in his life, his Alpha wanted—not to conquer—but to kneel.
Enigma's lips hovered, close enough that Jaxson could taste the electric charge of his breath. "Do you still crave me, Alpha," he whispered, "now that you know you'll never control me?"